Posts tagged with ‘ behavioural economics ’

One permanent secretary said “appearing before the PAC doesn’t change the price of fish”. Officials at HMRC and the Care Quality Commission may take a different view but it remains a fair question. Would defining better the respective roles of ministers and civil servants transform things? Will the latest civil service reforms make all...

Since the Institute published its MINDSPACE report in March, there has been an explosion of interest and activity around behavioural economics. Most notably, my co-author David Halpern now heads up a new Behavioural Insights Team in the Cabinet Office, which is tasked with ‘applying behavioural economics to policy in a systematic way’.

The Behavioural Insight Team – or ‘nudge’ unit, as Ministers call it – is about applying behavioural economics and social psychology to policy in a systematic way.